L/Cpl. John Shrigley
Royal Army Medical Corps
from:Bolton Road, Aspull
My father, John Shrigley, lived in Aspull, where he became an ambulance driver for the A.R.P. He enlisted on 2nd of February 1943 from address of 500 Bolton Road, Aspull, Nr. Wigan. He served in the R.A.M.C. stationed in Johor Bahru General Hospital.
At one point he was sent to convalesce following an operation to replace a fracture with a metal plate on the left side of his head. He received the injury whilst playing football when he was hit in the head. I remember the telegram arriving, and the postman stayed on the doorstep whilst my mother read the details. I think that they had to evacuate the patients from the hospital because the Japanese were advancing on them over the hill.
He was also at some point in Rangoon. He was a friend of Wong Arthur who wrote a letter to “All the Shrigley children” which we received when we were young and dad was away in India. He came home in either 1946 or 1947 on the Troopship Empress of Australia, which docked in Liverpool.
